sick day

Apparently encouraging Samuel to lounge about yesterday was a bit premature, as today he is REALLY sick. As in, woke up in a panic, barely able to breathe, barking like a seal sick. So, he's watching Charlotte's Web at the moment. BUT he is also finger knitting something or other for his yarn doll, and he made a connection between the finger weaving and Charlotte's weaving, so does that count for entomology? LOL

yarn doll

Samuel had a fever last night and was still recovering today, so I pretty much let him lounge in front of the TV all day. He did watch several episodes of vintage Reading Rainbow, so that counts as educational, right? Can't go wrong with LeVar! We also made a yarn doll, which was last week's Craft of the Week over at 4Real. Samuel had the idea to make it into a puppet, and I think that would work really well with 2 sticks in an X, and five strings - one from each end to a hand or foot, and one from the middle to the head. He then decided that he didn't want to do that to this one, though, so maybe we'll try it with another. It was a fun little project, and one that I think would work well in a group. We made ours with legs, but you could leave the bottom undone and it would be like a dress. Maybe we'll do some like that in white to be Christmas angels. Ooh, that would go great with Pascal and the Kitchen Angels! I'll have to remember that. :)

Mythology

In the interest of full disclosure, I'll say that Samuel's current interest in mythology started mostly because we have been watching Stargate: SG1 on DVD. If you are not familiar with this sci-fi series, it delves heavily into Egyptian mythology, and other mythologies to a lesser degree as well. So, Shawn has been reading mythology books to Samuel. So far, they are all the way through the ones on Greek mythology and Norse mythology and are now working on the Egyptian mythology one. Samuel likes to make masks for himself of the different Egyptian gods. And we started going to a cultural program at a local museum, and the first week was on Egypt! We got to see the Egyptian exhibit, make a sarcophagus mask, and write with hieroglyphics.

Pumpkins, squash, and gourds, oh my!

Also on Saturday, we went to a local pumpkin patch. Calling it a pumpkin patch hardly does it justice, though, as they grow over 200 varieties of pumpkins, squash, and gourds. Amazing! It was so fascinating to see the varieties, learn what they are used for, what countries they come from, and select our own to try. We got a nice jack-o-lantern pumpkin, but also a big pie pumpkin, a Japanese squash that is supposed to taste similar to hash browns when fried, a butternut, some sweet potato squash (Samuel's favorite last year), and some spaghetti squash, which I've been wanting to try for some time now. I'll post how they turn out as we cook them!

Stargazing

Thanks to a friend who took it upon herself to organize this, we were able to participate in a 2-part astronomy field trip last week. On Wednesday, we went to the local planetarium and saw the Fall Prairie Skies show, detailing the stars, planets, and galaxies that are currently visible in the night sky. Then on Saturday night, we joined the local Astronomical Society for their weekly viewing and got to see the moon up close, as well as the Andromeda galaxy, twin star clusters, the ring nebula, and all the constellations that we had learned about earlier in the week. We had a great time, and learned a lot. We will definitely have to do more stargazing - we were surprised at how much you can see with a simple pair of binoculars - not to mention your own eyes, when you leave the city lights behind!

a record....

My original blog was intended to be in part a record of what we do for homeschooling, but I don't really like cluttering it up with mundane details. So, I am going to keep those here. :) I don't expect that anyone will want to read this, but if you happen across it, you're welcome to follow our mostly-unschooling lifestyle! I hope to update this blog pretty regularlyas we go along, but I wanted to write down some of our past endeavors as well, so I'll add them to this post as I think of them.

Places visited up to October 2007:
Saint Louis zoo
Saint Louis Science Center
Missouri Botanical Gardens
Magic House
Grant's Farm
Indianapolis Children's Museum
Indianapolis Zoo
Bloomington Children's Museum
Bloomington Zoo
Decatur Zoo
camping: Turkey Run SP, IN; Geneva SP, OH; Salt Fork SP, OH
hiking at Turkey Run
Curtis Orchard
Great Pumpkin Patch
Rockome Gardens
a local Amish farm

Academic endeavors:
Working through the Little Stories for Little Folks phonics program
Math concepts: counting, addition and subtraction, simple multiplication and division, fractions

Books read:
too many to name! I will have to come up with a system for keeping track

Creative exercises:
Building with Legos, wooden blocks, Kugelbahn, Thomas trains
Puzzles
Creating countless costumes and accessories from paper, pipe cleaners, and other household objects
Painting with watercolors, acrylics, and poster paints
Modelling with clay and beeswax

Nature walks:
Spotted deer, rabbits, squirrels, lizards, spiders, insects, and lots of birds
Collected variety of leaves for study, crafts

more to be added...